On Android

This is a list of all the Hardware/OS combinations that we have blocked using the downloaded StageFright decoding blacklisting feature introduced in Firefox 17 for Android.

Hardware

OS

Feature

Reason

Bug

None

Compiled-in blacklist

The compiled-in blacklist is implemented separately for each OS/platform (Windows, Mac, X11). This list is presented for historical reasons, and is not currently up to date.

On Windows

All vendors other than AMD/ATI, NVIDIA, Intel are blocked (bug 623338). This was required primarily by various crashes on virtual machines with unusual vendor names (bug 621411). We're open to whitelisting more vendors if needed.

NVIDIA cards

We require NVIDIA driver version 257.21 (June 2010) or newer, see bug 623338. Notice that 257.21 is the commercial version number. This corresponds to the last 5 digits in the technical version number, which for instance is 8.17.12.5721 on Windows 7/Vista.

On Optimus devices, ANGLE rendering for WebGL is blocked (bug 636870). So WebGL should still work, but will use the OpenGL driver.

AMD/ATI cards

We require AMD driver version 10.6 (June 2010) or newer on Windows up to 7, see bug 623338. Notice that 10.6 is the commercial version number. The actual check is performed on the technical version number, and we require it to be at least 8.741.0.0.

We require AMD driver version greater than 12.11 beta (November 2012) on Windows 8, see bug 806991. Notice that 12.11 beta is the commercial version number. The actual check is performed on the technical version number, and we require it to be strictly higher than 9.10.8.0.

We block the OpenGL drivers on AMD cards on Windows, see bug 619773. This does not affect default functionality, as we use ANGLE instead of OpenGL by default for WebGL rendering anyway.

Intel cards

We require the following Intel driver versions, or newer (September 2010), see bug 594877.

You can determine the driver version by entering about:support in the Firefox location bar; look under the Graphics section.

The "GPU family" below doesn't necessarily match the "Adapter Description" in about:support. Indeed, Intel has multiple, overlapping product numbering schemes. For example, the "965 chipset family" encompasses the Q965 which is a GMA 3150 chip, and the G965 which is a GMA X3000 chip. Details of your Intel graphics chip are available from the Adapter tab of the Display Settings dialog in Windows. For example, in Windows Vista, one way to get to this in Windows Vista is right-click the desktop, choose Personalize > Display Settings > Display Settings > Monitor > Advanced Settings... > Adapter, and look for the Adapter String under Adapter Information.

Intel GPUs have been grouped by families in the table below. For example, by "GMA X3000" we mean all Intel GMA X3000, X3100, X3500 products.

We block Direct3D 10 features (including Direct2D) on buggy installations where the Intel driver version reported in the Windows Registry is not equal to the version of the driver DLL, igd10umd32.dll/igd10umd64.dll. See bug 590373.

Up to and including Firefox 6, on certain GPUs in the GMA X3000 generation (G35, GL960, GM965), we block Direct2D. See bug 595364. In Firefox 7 and newer, Direct2D is no longer blacklisted on these GPUs.

We block the OpenGL drivers on Intel cards on Windows, see bug 625118. This does not affect default functionality, as we use ANGLE instead of OpenGL by default for WebGL rendering anyway.

Dual-GPU systems

Our current blacklisting implementation does not properly support dual-GPU systems (bug 628129).

On Mac

For layers acceleration, we require Mac OS version 10.6.3 or newer. See bug 629016. One exception is <video> acceleration, which is enabled on all Mac OS versions.

For layers acceleration, we also block all old graphics adapters that do not fully support OpenGL 2.1 in hardware (use slow software fallbacks), or that can't render to non-power-of-two texture-backed framebuffers. That includes the following generations of GPUs: ATI Radeon X1000 and older, NVIDIA Geforce FX and older, and Intel GMA 950 and older.

On X11

WebGL is enabled by default, so it works if your OpenGL driver is whitelisted or if you bypass the blocking (see below).

GL layers acceleration is not yet enabled by default (see bug 594876). You can enable it by setting layers.acceleration.force-enabled=true in about:config.

The following drivers are whitelisted:

Mesa drivers are whitelisted if the Mesa version is at least 7.10.3 (see bug 659560).

Exception: with the Nouveau 3D driver, the Mesa version is required to be at least 8.0 (see bug 729817)

For the NVIDIA driver, versions 257.21 and newer are whitelisted, exactly like on Windows (see above).

For the FGLRX (proprietary ATI) driver, we whitelist the newer versions that implement OpenGL 3.0 or newer. Indeed, FGLRX does not return any version number of its own, so we had to use the OpenGL version as a differentiator.

How to force-enable blocked graphics features

If you would like to forcibly enable a graphics feature that is blocked on your system, follow these instructions. Warning: do this at your own risk. There usually are good reasons why features are blocked.

To force-enable WebGL, go to about:config and set webgl.force-enabled=true.

To force-enable WebGL anti-aliasing, go to about:config and set webgl.msaa-force=true.

To force-enable Layers Acceleration, go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled=true.

On Windows Vista and Windows 7, to force-enable Direct2D Content Acceleration, go to about:config and set gfx.direct2d.force-enabled=true.

On Android, to force-enable StageFright software decoding, go to about:config and set stagefright.force-enabled=true.

On Windows, you can also spoof your graphics system information to help debug driver blacklisting issues (see bug 604771):

If force-enabling a feature doesn't work, that probably means that your hardware doesn't support it. For example, layers acceleration currently requires support for 4Kx4K textures, which rules out some graphics cards, like the Intel G31/G33.